Gender A primer in several parts

Gender 101

Male and female what everyone is familiar

with

Wider range of genders (Western version):

Cisgender (body matches gender assigned at birth),

Transgender (body doesnt match)

Genderqueer (not exclusively male or female)

Third gender / Metagender

Bigender (incorporating two genders)

Genderfluid (shifting genders)

Agender (without gender)

Gender 101 (continued)

Second wave feminists argue that gender is a

social construct

Butler suggests gender is a performance

Gender is currently defined as an identity (in

much the same way that race and / or ethnicity

are components of identity)

Gender what is it?

Gender identity (how you feel)

Gender role (the cultural things you are

supposed to do)

Gender expression (how you perform gender,

verbally and non-verbally)

Ultimately, gender is an identity that is performed

through social constructs!

Why such a focus on gender?

Discourse about gender is critical

The words we use frame discourse, and

therefore frame how we think about things

Talbot (Language and Gender, discussing

Foucault):

Discourses are constituted in history and society; what is included as truth, access to that truth, who

may determine it, all depend on relations of power in

institutions. Foucault argues that dominant members

of institutions maintain control through discourses by

creating order; that is, by being the ones who make

boundaries and categories (p. 119).

What next?

Discourse around gender has changed

significantly in the past few years:

Janet Mock and Laverne Cox are good examples of transwomen being active in the

public eye

Facebook updates its list of available genders

More work needs to be done in normalizing non-binary genders